Higher Education
Cornell College, B.A., Magna Cum Laude, History and Political Science.
Harry S. Truman Scholarship; Phi Beta Kappa; Mortar Board; Spanish
Theatre; Latin American Studies Program, Mexico City.
J.D. Truman Scholar, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at
Berkeley.
Research Assistant to Professor Richard Jennings.
Professional Memberships
Sustaining Member, National College DUI Defense, Inc (NCDD)
National Association Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
Sustaining Member, Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice (AACJ)
Cochise County Bar Association (former president)
Drunk Driving Defense.com (national information resource center)
DUI-DWI.com (national information resource center)
DUI-Help.com (national information resource center)
Bar Admissions
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, San Francisco
United States District Court for Arizona, Tucson
State Bar of Arizona
Cochise County Bar Association
Advanced Professional, Technical, and Educational Achievements
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National College DUI Defense, Inc., Advanced DUI Training and Continuing
Education
Summer Sessions 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
taught at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Winter Sessions, 2002,
2003, 2004, taught in Biloxi, Mississippi, San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego,
California. This is the most advanced DUI practice course offered to a limited
number of attorneys (approximately 120/year) throughout the United States. It
consists of training based on a given factual scenario which each attorney is
required to prepare for trial, opening statements, cross-examination of
arresting officer; cross-examination of the State or Government's expert
witnesses; presentation of exculpatory evidence on behalf of the defendant; and
closing arguments, which are critiqued by very top DUI attorneys and instructors
from across the United States.
Trial practice training, conducted in small groups, is supplemented by
presentations and lectures by top scientists, law enforcement trainers, criminal
defense lawyers, jury consultants. Student/attendees work in groups with
scientists and criminalists who explain the inner workings and advanced
scientific developments regarding chemical blood, breath, and urine testing
using the same devices and instruments used in their own states or
jurisdictions, such as the Intoxilyzer.
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Certified Practitioner, NHTSA/IACP Standardized Field Sobriety Tests
Jeffrey Siirtola is a certified practitioner of the three standardized field
sobriety tests, including the horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) test; the Walk and
Turn (W/T) exercise, and the One Leg Stand (OLS), following completion of the
same three day (24 hour) course and alcohol workshop for practicing tests with
live human subjects dosed up to different alcohol levels, taught and supervised
by Master Law Enforcement Instructors from the State of Texas.
Few driving under influence defense lawyers have gone through and been
certified in this law enforcement training.
The course is based upon the law enforcement Training Manual and
curriculum developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, and upon a
scientific study done for DWI Detection and Field Sobriety Tests in San Diego,
California, including protocols for detecting possible alcohol-impaired drivers
by their driving behaviors (driving evidence); by officer observations of
subjects from time subject vehicles pull over to right hand side of road until
subjects are asked to step out of their vehicles (observation evidence); by
proper administration of three standardized field sobriety tests (SFST'S)(field
test evidence), resulting in arrest and the administration of chemical tests of
breath, blood, or urine.
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Breath Alcohol Testing (BAT) Certificate, Operator Intoxilyzer 5000
In 2003, Jeffrey Siirtola became the first lawyer in the State of Arizona to
purchase his own Intoxilyzer 5000 evidential breath testing device, then obtain
operators training on the device outside the State of Arizona. The Intoxilyzer
5000 is one of two breath testing machines or devices used in Arizona for
evidential breath testing of persons arrested for DUI under the Implied Consent
Law. The machine is manufactured by CMI in Kentucky, and is the predominant
machine used throughout the United States for breath testing.
Few driving under the influence lawyers have gone through and been
certified as operators of this device under national U.S. Department of
Transportation standards and the Code of Federal Regulations.
This course taught how to operate the device, how to conduct valid breath
tests on human subjects dosed up to various levels of alcohol; scientific and
technical aspects of breath alcohol testing, including photo-spectroscopy, the
internal parts and workings of the Intoxilyzer 5000; minimum factory recommended
maintenance standards for proper maintenance and operation of their machine.
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Breath Alcohol Testing (BAT) Certificate, Field Maintenance/Quality Assurance
Specialist, Intoxilyzer 5000
Most law enforcement personnel in the State of Arizona are trained to operate
the Intoxilyzer 5000 breath testing device. Only a small number of law
enforcement personnel are certified to conduct maintenance procedures, such as
monthly calibrations, however, on the Intoxilyzer 5000 breath testing device.
Mr. Siirtola is certified to federal U.S. Department of Transporation
standards under Code of Federal Regulations to do field maintenance procedures
and factory-recommended minimum preventive maintenance procedures on the
Intoxilyzer 5000.
Only a handful of attorneys own their own Intoxilyzers and/or have
maintenance certificates and the ability to conduct and critique performance of
maintenance procedures based on their own hands-on training on the devices to
national factory recommended maintenance standards, as opposed to lesser state
administrative maintenance standards.
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Certified Instructor, Breath Alcohol Testing (BAT), Intoxilyzer 5000 Operator
Course
Mr. Siirtola recently served as an adjunct instructor (technical/laboratory
instructor) Intoxilyzer 5000 operators course taught to national U. S.
Department of Transporation/CFR standards with law enforcement and medical
faculty/personnel in West Palm Beach, Florida.
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Certified Phlebotomist/Medical Blood Draw Technician
In Arizona, small numbers of law enforcement personnel have received training in
how to draw blood in clinical settings, have received certificates within their
departments to conduct blood draws on possible driving under influence subjects,
and are conducting blood draws to lesser, non-medical standards in field
situations.
Mr. Siirtola recently went through training in proper medical procedures
for conducting blood draws, taught to medical standards, and received a
phlebotomy certificate, and received a Training Manual for minimum safe and
appropriate medical standards for blood draws taken from human subjects, after
passing an examination and successfully conducting blood draws to proper
standards on human subjects.
On information and belief, Jeffrey may be the only driving under the
influence lawyer in Arizona to have gone through medical training for blood
draws, and to have obtained a certificate from a medical continuing education
service provider as a phlebotomist.
There are sometimes problems with how police phlebotomists collect blood;
store blood samples; and analyze blood that result in inaccurate or useless
numbers for blood alcohol test results, which can be discovered and, if
discovered by a knowledgeable defense laywer, used to advantage in a blood
evidence case.
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BAT (Breath Alcohol Technician), Operators Certificate, Intoxilyzer 8000
The Intoxilyzer 8000 is a new and novel evidential breath testing device being
used in the State of Arizona and, at the time of this writing, only five of the
other forty-nine other states. The State of Tennessee recently de-certified the
device for law enforcement use in Tennessee, because it failed to perform as
well, having less accurate and precise breath test results, than the device it
was supposedly designed to replace, the Intoxilyzer 5000.
Mr. Siirtola recently completed a multiple day operators course taught to
U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) standards on the Intoxilyzer 8000 device
at or near Memphis, Tennessee.
He may be the only, or one of a handful, of driving under influence
lawyers in Arizona, who have training and certificates for the Intoxilyzer 5000,
the Intoxilyzer 8000, the NHTSA/IACP Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFST's);
and Phlebotomy Procedures (blood), and who has conducted trainings on the
Intoxilyzer, as an instructor.
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Expert Certification/MCLE Presentations
Mr. Siirtola has been qualified as an expert witness on breath testing by a
number of courts.
Mr. Siirtola has been asked by his peers (and accepted invitations to
lecture/provide training to other driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs
lawyers), on subjects regarding breath testing and attacking breath test
results, and proper maintenance procedures for the devices in Arizona and other
states, including:
- Arizona
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Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice (AACH), MCLE annual event presentation
with expert witness, retired DPS Officer R.H. Fahrner and lawyer-owned
Intoxilyzer 5000 device, to group of approximately 100 criminal defense lawyers
in Tucson, Arizona.
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Two presentations, Cochise County Public Defender (CCPD) with Intoxilyzer 5000
for device familiarization; techniques and demonstrations regarding problems
with accuracy and reliability of numbers on breath test cards, for new trial
lawyers.
- Texas
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Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (TCDLA), CLE Arlington, Texas using a
live Intoxilyzer 5000 machine to demonstrate deficiencies in the machine to a
group of approximately 200 criminal defense lawyers and judges at annual driving
under influence technical/scientific evidence course.
- Oklahoma
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Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (OCDLA), CLE Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. Presentation including demonstrations of deficiencies in the
Intoxilyzer 5000 device, with live machine, at annual DUI defense seminar, to a
group of approximately 60 criminal defense attorneys.
- Georgia
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Mastering Scientific Evidence (MSE) CLE course conducted at Georgia Tech campus
and including approximately one hundred-fifty attorneys and top scientists,
including Dr. A.W. Jones, Likoppeng, Sweden and criminalist Chester Flaxmeyer,
Phoenix, Arizona.
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Technical co-presentation with and at invitation of Mr. William C. Head
(Georgia) and Mr. Charles Sifers (Oklahoma) on the Intoxilyzer 5000 using
national CMI Intoxilyzer 5000 factory-recommended maintenance guide/standards as
primary source material and using live Intoxilyzer 5000 for demonstrations to
practice group.
- Florida
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Adjunct instructor for Intoxilyzer 5000 operator certification course taught in
West Palm Beach, Florida (laboratory portion of course using devices and dosed
subjects for operational testing course requirement).
If you’re facing a Willcox, Arizona or Fort Huachuca DUI / DWI charge, you need a defense
lawyer with the knowledge and skills to challenge the evidence against you.
Willcox, Arizona DUI lawyer Jeffrey Siirtola is ready to review your drunk
driving case and plan an aggressive defense strategy. Please contact him today
at 1.800.DIAL.DUI or 1.888.DUI.JEFF for a
free consultation.
Why should you hire me to represent you in the Willcox court?
No one will fight harder for you when defending your
Willcox, Arizona DUI charge. I’ll analyze the evidence against you and
develop an aggressive defense using solid legal and scientific principles.
My first priority will always be your best interests.
I’ll thoroughly communicate your options to you and keep you informed of the
progress of your case every step of the way. Together, we’ll work to close the
book on this unpleasant chapter in your life and help you to move forward.
Please contact me today for a free consultation.